Red Sands

Caroline Eden is an extraordinarily creative and gifted writer. Red Sands captures the sights, tastes and feel of Central Asia so well that when reading this book I was sometimes convinced I was there in person. A wonderful book from start to finish. Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads

Caroline Eden, whose book Black Sea was showered with awards, is on the road again, this time travelling through the heart of Asia. It's not your usual cookbook, it's more a travel book with recipes, the recipes acting as postcards which she sends as she meets new characters, most of them involved with food... Eden travels quietly and lets you in on every encounter and every bite. A moving... as well as a fascinating read. Diana Henry, Telegraph

Red Sands follows in the footsteps of Caroline Eden's previous volume Black Sea. Both are pleasures to read, triangulating journalism, literary writing, and cookbookery. The recipes are part of the reporting, and Eden describes them as edible snapshots. Devra First, Boston Globe

Red Sands, the follow-up to Caroline Eden's multi-award-winning Black Sea, is a reimagining of traditional travel writing using food as the jumping-off point to explore Central Asia. In a quest to better understand this vast heartland of Asia, Caroline navigates a course from the shores of the Caspian Sea to the sun-ripened orchards of the Fergana Valley.

A book filled with human stories, forgotten histories and tales of adventure, Caroline is a reliable guide using food as her passport to enter lives, cities and landscapes rarely written about. Lit up by emblematic recipes, Red Sands is an utterly unique book, bringing in universal themes that relate to us all: hope, hunger, longing, love and the joys of eating well on the road.
"In her journey across Central Asia, Caroline uses food as her agent to give readers a very personal insight into this under-reported region, a land that bridges Europe and East Asia; links Russia and China; neighbours Iran and Afghanistan. While exploring mosques set in desert caves, wedding halls that glitter and suffocate, disorientating walnut forests, hotels for the heroes of the Soviet space programme and the cloying dining rooms of withered and cracked sanitoriums we meet the stars of this book. These are the cooks, poets, entrepreneurs, historians, gardeners and fishermaen of Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan."--Back of book.
"captures both the beauty and unease of travel with uncanny precision, accounting for small moments, great histories, and political tensions with a literary voice that often brushes against the sublime."- The New Yorker
"Caroline Eden's prior work, The Black Sea, was one of the most awarded cookbooks of 2019, a sweeping travelogue told through the lens of food. This book moves east, roughly from the Caspian Sea to the Fergana Valley in Uzbekistan, again telling stories of Edens travels and histories of the region, studded with recipes. " -Stained Page News
"Gripping culinary travels"- The New York Times
"The author of the award-winning Black Sea continues her gripping culinary travels by exploring the last blank on the map.- The New York Times
a fascinating fusion of travel and food writing - The Herald
Eden writes beautifully, not just about food. but about what it means to live an unchanging way of life in a fast-changing world - The Sunday Times Culture
Eden's beautifully observed travelogue includes essays on the connections she made and thorough examinations of the food she tried. It is as much a book for the bedside or coffee table as the kitchen counter. - The Sunday Times Magazine
If reading about exotic and colourful lands makes you feel better about not having any proper holidays this year, escape with this book. - The Scotsman
Rich, contemplative, and full of food that will enchant, it reports back from lands you may not be all that familiar with - Press Association
She is a great writer. If you want to lose yourself, I highly recommend this book. - Sheila Dillon, BBC Radio 4 The Food Programme, 'Cookbooks of 2020'
There is nobody writing about food at the moment who's committed to this level of immersion and it rings out in every line. - Financial Times
Caroline Eden is an extraordinarily creative and gifted writer. Red Sands captures the sights, tastes and feel of Central Asia so well that when reading this book I was sometimes convinced I was there in person. A wonderful book from start to finish.' Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads.
Caroline Eden, whose book Black Sea was showered with awards, is on the road again, this time traveling through the heart of Asia. It's not your usual cookbook, it's more a travel book with recipes, the recipes acting as postcards which she sends as she meets new characters, most of them involved with food... Eden travels quietly and lets you in on every encounter and every bite. A moving... as well as a fascinating read.' - Diana Henry, Daily Telegraph
Caroline Eden's prior work, The Black Sea, was one of the most awarded cookbooks of 2019, a sweeping travelogue told through the lens of food. This book moves east, roughly from the Caspian Sea to the Fergana Valley in Uzbekistan, again telling stories of Edens travels and histories of the region, studded with recipes. -Stained Page News
Red Sands follows in the footsteps of Caroline Eden's previous volume Black Sea. Both are pleasures to read, triangulating journalism, literary writing, and cookbookery: The recipes are part of the reporting, and Eden describes them as edible snapshots. Devra First, Boston Globe